Popular social media platform TikTok’s owner ByteDance has debuted its first set of earbuds. Called the Ola Friend, the brand’s first buds have been introduced in its home market of China. The Ola Friend buds are linked to the company’s self-developed chatbot called Doubao. Notably, ByteDance’s chatbot is currently one of the most popular GenAI applications in the Chinese market with more than 47 million monthly active users.
TikTok owner ByteDance’s first earbuds are designed to serve as an audio assistant
Notably, TikTok owner ByteDance’s OIa Friend buds are designed to work as an audio assistant for the wearer. The wearable allows people to chat directly with the brand’s GenAI chatbot without having to pick up their phones. The chatbot works as an assistant when the user is traveling, practicing English, listening to music, or looking for company, said ByteDance.
Furthermore, users can install the ByteDance chatbot on their smartphone and connect to the earbuds. Then they can activate it using the voice prompt word “Doubao Doubao”. The prompt word is derived from the brand’s GenAI service that was launched last year. Notably, the service is powered by the company’s large lange model – the tech behind GenAI apps – that’s also dubbed Doubao.
Priced at around $170, the Ola Friend will be available only in China for now
ByteDance’s Ola Friend wireless earbuds feature a distinctive design and weigh 6.6 grams each. The wearable is priced at 1,199 Yuan, which is roughly $170 when converted. The earbuds are available to order on Alibaba Group Holding’s Tmall marketplace. In addition, consumers can also order them from JD.com and ByteDance’s own Douyin platform, which is the Chinese sibling of TikTok.
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They will start shipping in the country from October 17. The audio accessory is offered in four color variants including Purple, Silver, Black, and White. ByteDance will only sell the earbuds in the Chinese market as its chatbot Doubao is only available there, which is the highlight of the accessory. The debut of the earbuds follows ByteDance completing its acquisition of Oladance, a maker of audio accessories.
Rumors that Fujifilm is making an all-new camera with a new kind of sensor, tipped for 2025, have plenty of fans excited. Details are thin, to say the least, and initial speculation has been based on what makes most sense according to Fujifilm’s current camera lineup, most plausibly landing on a digital compact with a 1-inch sensor.
That logic would pit the would-be Fujifilm camera against the likes of the Sony RX100 VII, which is one of our favorite premium compact cameras. However, there has recently been a surprising development that suggests this new sensor could, in fact, be a unique vertical one rather than being horizontally positioned like in pretty much every digital camera.
So, you would hold this camera horizontally – which is the easiest way to hold a camera – yet make vertical format pictures and videos, like the natural way on your phone. In analog terms, it’s the approach of half-frame, which is the format of the recent Pentax 17: it uses 35mm film but takes two half-sized vertical pictures in the space of every single frame on the film roll.
The difference here is that Fujifilm’s rumored camera isn’t analog but supposedly digital. So, is a digital half-frame camera a smart idea or a gimmick?
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Is a digital ‘half-frame’ compact camera a gimmick?
If anyone can make a digital compact with vertical sensor work, presumably being aimed at content creators, it’s Fujifilm. Fujifilm is a trending camera brand – its X100VI is one of the most popular and sought-after cameras in recent memory. Analog photography is also trending, with the half-frame Pentax 17 proving to be one of the hits this year. So bringing the two design concepts together into one: a retro digital compact with social-friendly vertical photos and videos – it should make sense.
Am I convinced? Yes and no. Let’s say the rumor is true. On the one hand I think a ‘half-frame’ digital compact is an easy sell in 2024, especially with Fujifilm’s retro looks. But what would it be like to actually take pictures and videos with said camera?
Let’s be clear: You can simply rotate a regular digital camera 90 degrees to shoot in vertical format and rotate those video clips using a video editor. Or you can sacrifice video resolution by cropping into your horizontal videos to make a vertical one. However, these steps are awkward, and a camera that’s optimized for shooting vertically makes a lot of sense in 2024 and beyond.
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Most people view short-form video content and photos on their phones vertically, so why not just make capturing in that format as easy as possible? Sure, shooting half-frame is counter intuitive at first. However, you’d get the full-resolution of the sensor for vertical video rather than having to crop down to a lower resolution, and avoid unnecessary time editing. Being a dedicated camera, you would also get a superior user experience over using your phone instead.
Half-frame makes even more sense for analog photography, where your photos are permanently exposed onto a film roll. For instance, I love creatively thinking in pairs, which is another layer of image curation, plus you double the number of your shots on a film roll. In a way you don’t get the same practical benefits with digital and a memory card that can hold thousands of photos. As an aside, I wouldn’t be the only one hoping that Fujifilm follows in Pentax’s footsteps and develops an analog camera, especially as it’s one of the leading producers of photographic film.
I can see a digital half-frame compact resonating with many people, and being ridiculed by others. Personally, I’m all for brands trying new things and I hope this rumor turns out to be true. If the camera materializes, it’ll certainly spark debate and offer creators a unique shooting experience to wrap their heads around.
And like many teenagers, they pose a challenge to grown-ups who hope to curb their excesses.
It’s not for want of trying. This year alone, governments around the world have attempted to limit the impacts of harmful content and disinformation on social media – effects that are amplified by algorithms.
In Brazil, authorities briefly banned X, formerly known as Twitter, until the site agreed to appoint a legal representative in the country and block a list of accounts that the authorities accused of questioning the legitimacy of the country’s last election.
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Meanwhile, the EU has introduced new rules threatening to fine tech firms 6% of turnover and suspend them if they fail to prevent election interference on their platforms.
In the UK, a new online safety act aims to compel social media sites to tighten content moderation.
The governments face accusations that they are restricting free speech and interfering with the principles of the internet as laid down in its early days.
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In a 1996 essay that was republished by 500 websites – the closest you could get to going viral back then – US poet and cattle rancher John Perry Barlow argued: “Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather.”
Adam Candeub is a law professor and a former advisor to President Trump, who describes himself as a free speech absolutist.
Social media is “polarising, it’s fractious, it’s rude, it’s not elevating – I think it’s a terrible way to have public discourse”, he tells the BBC. “But the alternative, which I think a lot of governments are pushing for, is to make it an instrument of social and political control and I find that horrible.”
Professor Candeub believes that, unless “there is a clear and present danger” posed by the content, “the best approach is for a marketplace of ideas and openness towards different points of view”.
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The limits of the digital town square
This idea of a “marketplace of ideas” feeds into a view of social media as offering a level playing field, allowing all voices to be heard equally. When he took over Twitter (now rebranded as X) in 2022, Elon Musk said that he saw the platform as a “digital town square”.
But does that fail to take into account the role of algorithms?
According to US lawyer and Yale University global affairs lecturer Asha Rangappa, Musk “ignores some important differences between the traditional town square and the one online: removing all content restrictions without accounting for these differences would harm democratic debate, rather than help it.”
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Introduced in an early 20th-Century Supreme Court case, the concept of a “marketplace of ideas”, Rangappa argues, “is based on the premise that ideas should compete with each other without government interference”. However, she claims, “the problem is that social media platforms like Twitter are nothing like a real public square”.
Rather, argues Rangappa, “the features of social media platforms don’t allow for free and fair competition of ideas to begin with… the ‘value’ of an idea on social media isn’t a reflection of how good it is, but is rather the product of the platform’s algorithm.”
The evolution of algorithms
Algorithms can watch our behaviour and determine what millions of us see when we log on – and, for some, it is algorithms that have disrupted the free exchange of ideas possible on the internet when it was first created.
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“In its early days, social media did function as a kind of digital public sphere, with speech flowing freely,” Kai Riemer and Sandra Peter, professors at the University of Sydney Business School, tell the BBC.
However, “algorithms on social media platforms have fundamentally reshaped the nature of free speech, not necessarily by restricting what can be said, but by determining who gets to see what content”, argue Professors Riemer and Peter, whose research looks at why we need to rethink free speech on social media.
“Rather than ideas competing freely on their merits, algorithms amplify or suppress the reach of messages… introducing an unprecedented form of interference in the free exchange of ideas that is often overlooked.”
Facebook is one of the pioneers of recommendation algorithms on social media, and with an estimated three billion users, its Feed is arguably one of the biggest.
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When the platform rolled out a ranking algorithm based on users’ data 15 years ago, instead of seeing posts in chronological order, people saw what Facebook wanted them to see.
Determined by the interactions on each post, this came to prioritise posts about controversial topics, as those garnered the most engagement.
Shaping our speech
Because contentious posts are more likely to be rewarded by algorithms, there is the possibility that the fringes of political opinion can be overrepresented on social media. Rather than free and open public forums, critics argue that social media instead offers a distorted and sensationalised mirror of public sentiment that exaggerates discord and muffles the views of the majority.
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So while social media platforms accuse governments of threatening free speech, is it the case that their own algorithms might also inadvertently pose a threat?
“Recommendation engines are not blocking content – instead it is the community guidelines that restrict freedom of speech, according to the platform’s preference,” Theo Bertram, the former vice president of public policy at TikTok, tells the BBC.
“Do recommendation engines make a big difference to what we see? Yes, absolutely. But whether you succeed or fail in the market for attention is not the same thing as whether you have the freedom to speak.”
Yet is “free speech” purely about the right to speak, or also about the right to be heard?
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As Arvind Narayanan, professor of Computer Science at Princeton University, has said: “When we speak online – when we share a thought, write an essay, post a photo or video – who will hear us? The answer is determined in large part by algorithms.”
By determining the audience for each piece of content that’s posted, platforms “sever the direct relationship between speakers and their audiences”, argue Professors Riemer and Peter. “Speech is no longer organised by speaker and audience, but by algorithms.”
It’s something that they claim is not acknowledged in the current debates over free speech – which focus on “the speaking side of speech”. And, they argue, it “interferes with free speech in unprecedented ways”.
The algorithmic society
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Our era has been labelled “the algorithmic society” – one in which, it could be argued, social media platforms and search engines govern speech in the same way nation states once did.
This means straightforward guarantees of freedom of speech in the US constitution can only get you so far, according to Jack Balkin of Yale University: “the First Amendment, as normally construed, is simply inadequate to protect the practical ability to speak”.
Professors Riemer and Peter agree that the law needs to play catch-up. “Platforms play a much more active role in shaping speech than the law currently recognises.”
And, they claim, the way in which harmful posts are monitored also needs to change. “We need to expand how we think about free speech regulation. Current debates focused on content moderation overlook the deeper issue of how platforms’ business models incentivise them to algorithmically shape speech.”
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While Professor Candeub is a “free speech absolutist”, he’s also wary of the power concentrated in the platforms that can be gatekeepers of speech via computer code. “I think that we would do well to have these algorithms made public because otherwise we’re just being manipulated.”
Yet algorithms aren’t going away. As Bertram says, “The difference between the town square and social media is that there are several billion people on social media. There is a right to freedom of speech online but not a right for everyone to be heard equally: it would take more than a lifetime to watch every TikTok video or read every tweet.”
What, then, is the solution? Could modest tweaks to the algorithms cultivate more inclusive conversations that more closely resemble the ones we have in person?
New microblogging platforms like Bluesky are trying to offer users control over the algorithm that displays content – and to revive the chronological timelines of old, in the belief that offers an experience which is less mediated.
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In testimony she gave to the Senate in 2021, Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen said: “I’m a strong proponent of chronological ranking, ordering by time… because we don’t want computers deciding what we focus on, we should have software that is human-scaled, or humans have conversations together, not computers facilitating who we get to hear from.”
However, as Professor Narayanan has pointed out, “Chronological feeds are not … neutral: They are also subject to rich-get-richer effects, demographic biases, and the unpredictability of virality. There is, unfortunately, no neutral way to design social media.”
Platforms do offer some alternatives to algorithms, with people on X able to choose a feed from only those they follow. And by filtering huge amounts of content, “recommendation engines provide greater diversity and discovery than just following people we already know”, argues Bertram. “That feels like the opposite of a restriction of freedom of speech – it’s a mechanism for discovery.”
A third way
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According to the US political scientist Francis Fukuyama, “neither platform self-regulation, nor the forms of state regulation coming down the line” can solve “the online freedom of speech question”. Instead, he has proposed a third way.
“Middleware” could offer social media users more control over what they see, with independent services providing a form of curation separate from that inbuilt on the platforms. Rather than being fed content according to the platforms’ internal algorithms, “a competitive ecosystem of middleware providers … could filter platform content according to the user’s individual preferences,” writes Fukuyama.
“Middleware would restore that freedom of choice to individual users, whose agency would return the internet to the kind of diverse, multiplatform system it aspired to be back in the 1990s.”
In the absence of that, there could be ways we can currently improve our sense of agency when interacting with algorithms. “Regular TikTok users are often very deliberate about the algorithm – giving it signals to encourage or discourage the recommendation engine along avenues of new discovery,” says Bertram.
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“They see themselves as the curator of the algorithm. I think this is a helpful way of thinking about the challenge – not whether we need to switch the algorithms off but how do we ensure users have agency, control and choice so that the algorithms are working for them.”
Although, of course, there’s always the danger that even when self-curating our own algorithms, we could still fall into the echo chambers that beset social media. And the algorithms might not do what we ask of them – a BBC investigation found that, when a young man tried to use tools on Instagram and TikTok to say he was not interested in violent or misogynistic content, he continued to be recommended it.
Despite that, there are signs that as social media algorithms move towards maturity, their future could not be in the hands of big tech, nor politicians, but with the people.
According to a recent survey by the market-research company Gartner, just 28% of Americans say they like documenting their life in public online, down from 40% in 2020. People are instead becoming more comfortable in closed-off group chats with trusted friends and relatives; spaces with more accountability and fewer rewards for shocks and provocations.
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Meta says the number of photos sent in direct messages now outnumbers those shared for all to see.
Just as Barlow, in his 1996 essay, told governments they were not welcome in Cyberspace, some online users might have a similar message to give to social media algorithms. For now, there remain competing visions on what to do with the internet’s wayward teen.
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The New York Times has introduced the next title coming to its Games catalog following Wordle’s continued success — and it’s all about math. Digits has players adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing numbers. You can play its beta for free online right now. In Digits, players are presented with a target number that they need to match. Players are given six numbers and have the ability to add, subtract, multiply, or divide them to get as close to the target as they can. Not every number needs to be used, though, so this game should put your math skills to the test as you combine numbers and try to make the right equations to get as close to the target number as possible.
Players will get a five-star rating if they match the target number exactly, a three-star rating if they get within 10 of the target, and a one-star rating if they can get within 25 of the target number. Currently, players are also able to access five different puzzles with increasingly larger numbers as well. I solved today’s puzzle and found it to be an enjoyable number-based game that should appeal to inquisitive minds that like puzzle games such as Threes or other The New York Times titles like Wordle and Spelling Bee. In an article unveiling Digits and detailing The New York Time Games team’s process to game development, The Times says the team will use this free beta to fix bugs and assess if it’s worth moving into a more active development phase “where the game is coded and the designs are finalized.” So play Digits while you can, as The New York Times may move on from the project if it doesn’t get the response it is hoping for. Digits’ beta is available to play for free now on The New York Times Games’ website
Ulefone has an Armor Mini 20T Pro hands-on video to show us
This video has a duration of around a minute and a half. It’s embedded below the article, and it not only gives us a great look at the phone’s design, but it also highlights some of its most notable features.
This rugged smartphone is both MIL-STD-810H and IP68/IP69K certified. It can not only take a hit if you drop it, but it’s water and dust resistant. It sure does look the part, it looks like a proper rugged phone.
The thermal variant of this smartphone includes FLIR’s Lepton 3.5 thermal sensor. The phone also comes with the MyFLIR Pro app pre-installed, so that you have complete control over that thermal sensor’s functionality.
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There is also a powerful LED light included on the back, which is rather versatile, actually. You can adjust its brightness, while some flashing patterns are also available. It can be used as an SOS signal tool, while it also has the Emergency Warning Light pattern built-in.
A rather beefy battery is also included
The MediaTek Dimensity 6300 SoC fuels this phone, while Ulefone also offers some accessories for it. A 6,200mAh battery sits inside this small phone, as does a 64-megapixel Night Vision camera.
Ulefone included 8GB of RAM on the inside, but you can double that via virtual RAM. 5G is supported, while the phone can charge at a max of 33W (via a wired). It also supports 15W wireless charging and has a 50-megapixel main camera.
Android 14 comes pre-installed here. The Ulefone Armor Mini 20 Pro and Armor Mini 20T Pro will become available on October 21 via AliExpress. The non-T variant doesn’t have a thermal camera on the back.
It’s an experience many of us know all too well: open up a food blogger’s recipe only to scroll past a mountain of content you don’t care about to actually reach the ingredients and method. Google is trialing a feature that could eliminate this step, even though it’s the result of the company’s own policies.
noticed a new button on the thumbnails for select recipes called Quick View. This button brings up the complete recipe without leaving the search results page. In their testing, a search for “chocolate chip cookie recipe” revealed this Quick View button for the site Preppy Kitchen.
“We’re always experimenting with different ways to connect our users with high-quality and helpful information,” Google rep Brianna Duff told Engadget about these Quick View recipes. “We have partnered with a limited number of creators to begin to explore new recipe experiences on Search that are both helpful for users and drive value to the web ecosystem. We don’t have anything to announce right now.” While Google does have agreements inked with the participating bloggers, the company declined to reveal any further details about the scope of this testing.
It’s quite a catch-22 Google has created when it comes to recipes online. Home cooks may find this Quick View feature appealing since so many food blogs front-load their posts with photos and personal stories before actually sharing the recipe. But it was Google’s own rules that pushed bloggers toward that approach in the first place, with longer posts generally indexing higher up in search results and thus getting more traffic. (And no offense to the food bloggers of the world, but the only chocolate chip cookie recipe you need is the one on the back of the chocolate chip bag.)
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While this recipe feature is just an early trial, Google has been rolling out other tools aimed at keeping users on its own webpages and platforms. The in search are one of the latest (and ) ways the company is changing the rules of engagement for web content.
This week, after months of waiting for a follow-up to the hugely successful Nintendo Switch handheld we finally got brand new Nintendo hardware in form of a clock called Alarmo. We also saw some major AI developments for Gemini, and the RTX 5090 price leaked (spoiler, it ain’t cheap).
To catch up on all of this and more, we’ve collected the week’s biggest news stories here so you can find out about everything you missed.
8. Apple struggled to keep a lid on the M4 MacBook Pro
Apple doesn’t really do leaks, so this week was something of a shock for tech fans used to its watertight launches.
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Not only did we see a wave of credible video and benchmark leaks for the rumored M4 MacBook Pro, several people in Russia claimed to be selling the unannounced laptop on a classified ads site. Not quite on the level of leaving an iPhone 4 prototype in a bar, but not far off.
While it’s possible that those now-pulled adverts were fakes, the sheer number of convincing leaks suggests that an M4 MacBook Pro is coming soon – potentially with more Thunderbolt ports and a Space Black version.
7. Toyota revealed a future powered by hydrogen cartridges
Hydrogen hit the headlines again this week as a possible fuel source for cars and even homes as Toyota revealed some concept portable cartridges that look like giant AA batteries.
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Toyota says the cylinders have been developed using its experience in shrinking the hydrogen tanks in its fuel-cell electric vehicles. The concept is certainly an alluring one – rather than having to refuel at petrol stations or EV charging points, you could just swap out your power source when your hydrogen levels run low. In theory, at least.
Whether the concept makes it to reality remains to be seen, but it’s hopefully at least somewhere down the road – we can’t endure broken EV charging networks for much longer.
6.Nintendo finally launched new hardware
Nintendo Sound Clock: Alarmo â Announcement Trailer – YouTube
Nintendo announced new hardware this week, but it wasn’t the Nintendo Switch 2. Instead it revealed (of all things) a new sound clock called Alarmo.
It features a 2.8-inch LCD screen that tells you the date, time, and shows a playful Nintendo mascot – including Link, Olimar, and (of course) Mario – who react to what you and Alarmo are doing. Though if you stay in bed for too long Alarmo might send a less friendly face to motivate you – like the evil king Bowser.
What makes this smart alarm clock clever however is its in-built motion sensor which can track your movements. Alarmo can track your sleep habits which you can review in the morning, can be waved at to snooze your alarm, and can detect when you sit up to stop your alarm.
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Alarmo’s only available to buy for people who are paid Nintendo Switch Online members right now, but it should be launching to the general public in January 2025.
5. Google’s Imagen 3 rolled out worldwide
This week Google updated its Gemini AI chatbot to use the latest Imagen 3 software for generating images. It’s easy to use too, you just ask Gemini to create an image using the same text prompts that you use to talk to Gemini normally. Imagen 3 sees considerable improvements over the previous version, with much better detail in images, especially where text is concerned.
Imagen 3 is available to everybody who can access Gemini, on a laptop or smartphone, even if you are on the free tier, however, while the image quality of Imagen 3 is superb, and there don’t seem to be limits on how many images you can create a day, there is one slight annoyance – you need to be a Gemini Advanced subscriber if you want to use it to generate images of people.
4. The Apple Intelligence release date leaked
Apple Intelligence finally has a release date… sort of. We were told Apple’s AI tools would arrive on iPhone, iPad, and Mac as part of a software update in October, and Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman has given us a date.
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Gurman suspects iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1 will arrive on October 28, ushering in a new era for Apple as it moves into the AI-powered future. It’s definitely an exciting time to own Apple products, but will features like Writing Tools, Clean Up, and notification summaries be enough to make people care about AI?
At WWDC, Craig Federighi called it ‘AI for the rest of us’, but time will tell if the ‘rest of us’ even want AI to begin with. Expect to see Apple Intelligence features roll out over the next year with Genmoji and Image Playground arriving before the end of the year and Siri’s long-anticipated update set to release in early 2025.
3. The Loop Dream helped us sleep well
Loop released its latest noise reducing ear buds, Loop Dream, which are specifically designed for sleep. Offering the highest noise reduction in the Loop range at 27dB, Loop Dream features redesigned oval tips that put less pressure on your ear canal as well as a new, silicon-coated loop that secures the buds in the cavum of your ear.
These handy little buds proved to be massively useful for our Managing Editor of Lifestyle, who’s been using them for the last three weeks – and finally slept well because of it.
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2. Nvidia apparently losing its mind with next-gen GPU pricing
It was a rocky ride for Nvidia this week from the rumor mill, and the most eye-opening piece of speculation came regarding the purported price tags that Team Green could pin on RTX 5000 graphics cards when they arrive (likely early next year).We were seriously shocked to discover that Nvidia is apparently mulling – and it is just a consideration at this point – a price of between $1,999 and $2,499 for the flagship RTX 5090. And the leaker who shared this – YouTuber Moore’s Law is Dead – reckons that the company is looking more towards the $2.5K mark, than a mere two grand. Yikes.
Furthermore, Nvidia may be thinking about pitching the RTX 5080 from $1,199 up to $1,499, and the RTX 5070 could go for $599 to $699. An RTX 5070 that is potentially equipped with only 12GB of VRAM, we should note, adding to the indignation around this week’s Nvidia-related leaks.
What’s going on with these prices? We’re honestly a bit baffled, but a theory proposed that maybe Nvidia is testing the reaction to this pricing, when the figures were inevitably leaked, could offer up some hope that there’ll be a reversal of course here. Come on, Nvidia – don’t do this to us. The worst thing, in some ways, is that these days it almost feels inevitable that Team Green will push the envelope when it comes to expensive, and that worse still, this gives AMD no incentive to price more competitively with RDNA 4 GPUs, either, when they arrive. Meh…
1. Panasonic revealed the world’s smallest zoom lens for full-frame
Panasonic‘s new Lumix S 18-40mm F4.5-6.3 became the world’s smallest and lightest zoom lens with autofocus for full-frame cameras – and it’s an ideal pairing with the Lumix S9 mirrorless camera, for which a big firmware update was also announced, plus improvements to Panasonic’s Lumix Lab app.
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Tipping the scales at just 0.34lb / 155g and measuring just 40.9mm in length when retracted, the 18-40mm is positively tiny yet still packs a wider than average 18mm perspective that’s ideal for video creators, weather resistance, focus breathing suppression, plus decent close focusing capabilities – just 0.15m / 0.49ft. It’s exactly the lens that Panasonic’s polarizing Lumix S9 for content creators needed, a camera that we labeled “small, simple, powerful, flawed” in our Lumix S9 in-depth review, but whose compact form felt rather redundant without a complementary L-mount lens. That changed with the new 18-40mm which, along with the firmware update, gives the Lumix S9 gets a second wind and could realize its potential as one of the best YouTube cameras.
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